A Comprehensive Guide to Board Resolutions: Drafting Effective Templates and Avoiding Common Mistakes

A Comprehensive Guide to Board Resolutions: Drafting Effective Templates and Avoiding Common Mistakes

The resolution is the main form of implementation of management assignments in written form. It involves setting a specific task, defining its subject, purpose, term and the person responsible for its implementation, which is set out as an inscription on the document. Here are several tips on how to write board resolutions.

Board resolutions: content requirements and formatting rules

In the system of genres of written business communication, a special place is occupied by the resolution of the head – his written instruction to specialists in the execution of the incoming document. Work with documentation is the main activity of all employees of the management apparatus, from technical executors to top managers. Without management documents, planning, financing, solving accounting and reporting problems, staffing, etc., are impossible. In the genre classification of official business style texts, a resolution, orders, and instructions refer to administrative documents. The term resolution means “permission”. It is the name of a decision that higher authorities or company executives made after heated discussions. It always raises an important issue and has more legal force than an oral statement. Resolutions are individual and collective. In the first case, the question is considered by one person, and in the second – by several.

Many consider the board resolution an unnecessary piece of paper and unnecessary bureaucracy. However, its role is much more important: the document disciplines employees and helps the manager to track the execution order. Very often, the execution of documents the organization receives begins precisely with the execution of resolutions. In this regard, the significance of the resolution as a means of control is, in some cases, absolutized. In many organizations, the bulk of incoming documents, regardless of their content and degree of importance, are transferred to the head, considered by him, and then, with a formalized resolution, going down the steps of the hierarchical ladder, get to the direct executor.

Functions of a board resolution on a document

As already mentioned, a resolution on a document is put down by the official to whom the document is addressed if its content requires the adoption of some kind of operational decision or order. At the same time, in turn, the content of the requirements must have the form of an administrative document. He should clearly, concisely and concisely give instructions on further actions concerning this business paper.

The board resolution has the following mandatory components:

    • surname,
    • first name of the executor (executors) in the dative case,
    • content of the mandate,
    • deadline,
    • personal signature of the manager,
    • date.

How to write a resolution: simple tips

Although most boards prefer to write resolutions as it is convenient for them, several formal rules clearly regulate the drafting of documents and the writing of resolutions on them. If you want all paperwork in your organization to meet established standards, it is recommended to pay attention to writing resolutions, no matter how short they may be. By the way, today, board portal solutions can easily manage board resolutions and similar corporate documents automatically. These cloud platforms ensure ready-made board resolution template or agenda and minutes templates to simplify the work of the corporate secretary during the board meetings.

The draft resolution is always prepared on a separate sheet of paper and presented to the head in printed form along with the document. The chair has the right to make any adjustments to the project: change the composition of the executors or the responsible executor, detail the assignment, reduce the deadlines for execution, etc. If the head made changes and signed the project, he thus recorded his decision, i.e., imposed resolution.